Valley Emperor

About five kilometers away from the city of Hami, barracks after barracks made the place lose its desert atmosphere. Here, it was the front-line base camp of the Western Expedition Army.

At this time, the 4th Infantry Division, the 30th Infantry Division, an infantry division, and an artillery brigade were stationed here. At the same time, it was also the headquarters of the Western Expedition Army, and Admiral Lu Yu personally sat there.

On the left and right sides of the base camp, there were two other troops, the 23rd Infantry Division and the 24th Infantry Division, and two cavalry corps were stationed separately.

In general, the main force of four infantry divisions, two cavalry corps, and one artillery brigade of the Western Expedition Army surrounded the north, south, and east of Hami City, leaving only the west.

Take the standard siege tactics.

At the same time, there are two infantry divisions, an armed train regiment, and two independent cavalry regiments in the rear as the main force to guard the railway line.

Since the Western Expedition Army set off, it has adopted a steady and steady approach, no matter how the Tatars on the opposite side acted, it is a firm tactic of building railways.

And this tactic brought them back today. They successfully crossed hundreds of kilometers of Gobi Desert and deserted no-man's land, and then successfully arrived outside Hami City.

Even if the railway line is still 50 to 60 kilometers away from Hami City, this distance will not be a big problem. In order to ensure that the subsequent railway can be successfully repaired to Hami City, Lu Yuzhi mobilized the main force in advance to station troops under Hami City. , directly blocked the city of Hami, and indirectly covered the construction team in the rear to continue to build the railway.

On the eighth day of October, General Lu Yuzhi convened a meeting of senior generals on the front line, but he did not issue any combat orders.

At the meeting, Lu Yuzhi looked relaxed, and there was no tense atmosphere about the war in his words, but he was still in the mood to chat with his subordinates about daily life.

This made Ying Yikang and others feel a little obedient. Ying Yikang thought that he would receive battle orders when he came to the meeting today. Unexpectedly, Lu Yuzhi continued to keep the troops stationed, as long as the Tartars did not come out and did not flee, Then forget about the Tatars in the city.

Ying Yikang understands and agrees with this tactical choice, but what he cares about is not these, but Lu Yuzhi's attitude.

At the meeting, Lu Yuzhi's relaxed demeanor seemed as if he had come for an outing, and he was not nervous at all.

After the meeting, Ying Yikang and Dong Qiankun, the commander of the 14th Division, went out together.

Dong Qiankun looked at Ying Yikang's expression and said, "Relax!"

Ying Yikang didn't know why, so he raised his head and looked at Dong Qiankun with doubts.

Dong Qiankun said: "This Western Expedition campaign is not a month or two months, or even a year or two. Our army has planned for the Western Expedition for many years. Central Asia will not give up once it is in the bag!"

"So, these days, you have to learn to adjust your mentality!"

Dong Qiankun's mindless words made Ying Yikang puzzled at first, but he soon showed an embarrassed smile: "Brother Dong taught me that it was my younger brother that my mind was not stable!"

Hearing this, Dong Qiankun smiled: "That's good!"

Dong Qiankun saw Ying Yikang's serious demeanor at the meeting, and he could see at a glance why Ying Yikang was like this. He just felt that the war was coming.

But in reality, this state of high tension is undesirable.

This is especially bad for a senior general, because this kind of high tension can easily be passed on to his subordinates, eventually causing the whole army to be nervous.

And the bowstring is too tight, which is good for a short time, but not a good thing for a long time.

So when the meeting was over, he gave Ying Yikang a few pointers, and Ying Yikang was also a smart person, and he understood as soon as he heard it.

This made Dong Qiankun take a high look at Ying Yikang. Although this person is young, his awakening is really not bad, not only in terms of commanding the troops, but also in terms of mentality.

He knew that it was the first time that Ying Yikang had served as a division commander, but in the past few months, Ying Yikang had served as the division commander of the 30th Infantry Division, and there were basically no mistakes.

This is very rare. For the first time as a division commander, it is to go to the front line to fight. Even if I used to be an auxiliary mission in the rear, it is not so easy to command a division properly.

The man's military talent is quite remarkable.

It is still necessary to make friends with such a person, because there is no telling when this person will climb ahead of him.

Nowadays, every army general knows that Ying Yikang is highly valued by many army leaders, even the Son of Heaven.

Ying Yikang is not only the leader of the younger generation of generals, but also the successor of those army bosses.

This can be seen from Ying Yikang's resume. After graduating from the martial arts school, each of his positions is not an ordinary position. He has fought overseas, led troops in the Northwest Frontline, and has also changed positions in the Privy Council. From the combat department to the staff department, he even served concurrently as the state logistics department, the ordnance department, the artillery director, and the cavalry director.

How can a normal officer experience so many important positions in a short period of time, and he is still part-time...

To put it bluntly, these are all for the purpose of cultivating him, and even the position of division commander of the 30th Infantry Division in this Western Expedition campaign is strictly speaking his transitional position.

In the history of the Datang Army, few people have been treated like him.

Ying Yikang also came back to his senses at this time, knowing that his mentality in the past few days was somewhat inappropriate. After this calmed down, he continued to talk with Dong Qiankun, but he was not talking about military affairs, but some trivial matters.

During the conversation, Ying Yikang was also quite happy after learning that Dong Qiankun also likes calligraphy and painting, and that he is good at writing, because he is also very interested in calligraphy, and his calligraphy is quite good.

Ying Yikang's calligraphy has always been very good, not only calligraphy, in fact, he has been involved in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and they are all good, and the poetry and writing are also first-class.

In fact, the generals and officers of the Tang Dynasty were basically good at poetry, writing, qin, chess, calligraphy and painting, and were both civil and military.

Because when Wu Xuetang recruits students, they are recruited from various preparatory schools and the Royal Youth Military Academy, and the students who can go to these schools have a considerable level of cultural courses.

Basically, students who can be admitted to the Wuxuetang or Haixuetang, turn around and go to the two top universities, Guozijian and Jinling University, there is no problem at all.

Basically, the top young bachelors in the Tang Dynasty basically flowed to four schools: Army Martial Arts School, Naval Maritime Academy, Guozijian University, and Minister of Jinling.

If Ying Yikang hadn't applied for the martial arts school back then, he would have been admitted to the Guozijian and ranked among the best.

After the two sides exchanged calligraphy, Ying Yikang personally sent Dong Qiankun back to the camp. Dong Qiankun came over from a railway construction site more than 50 kilometers away for a meeting. After the meeting, he naturally wanted to go back.

After sending Dong Qiankun away, Ying Yikang also returned to the headquarters of the 30th Infantry Division, and then passed on Lu Yuzhi's instructions.

What instructions!

Eat and sleep well!

Originally, there was monitoring of the enemy army and the like, but that was all about the reconnaissance cavalry unit, and had nothing to do with the infantry generals like Ying Yikang.

All these infantrymen can do now is eat, sleep, and wait for the siege to begin, or the Tartars to kill themselves.

But will the Tatars come out?

The answer is unique: no!

Wulihan had already seen clearly the difference in strength between the two sides. The Tang army outside the city was tens of thousands, while his own army was only 30,000 to 40,000 people. It was barely enough to defend the city, but to take the initiative to attack would be courting death. .

But even if it is to defend the city, Ulihan is actually not ready to defend it!

Because it is impossible to hold on!

The railway of the Datang people has been built under the city of Hami. With this railway, the people of the Tang Dynasty can continuously transport heavy artillery and artillery shells, and then bombard the city of Hami.

In the past many siege battles, it has been proved that the so-called strong city is vulnerable to heavy artillery.

When the Tatars attacked a large number of countries in Central Asia and entered Europe, they broke countless cities.

How did they break through?

Naturally, instead of relying on the cavalry to climb the city wall with cavalry riding horses and waving sabres, they directly pulled out countless artillery pieces for shelling.

Moscow was beaten like this, and Kyiv was beaten like this.

The Tartars themselves made extensive use of artillery for siege, and they were quite aware of the power of artillery.

In addition, they also know that the Tang army is also widely equipped with grenades.

At this stage, the lethality of the grenade to the defending side is even greater~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Many things represent that it is not feasible to simply defend the city, so Ulihan never considered relying solely on the city from the beginning. Stick to it.

What he initially counted on was to cut off their supply lines by sending cavalry to attack their railroads.

But within a few months, it was unsuccessful, and more than 2,000 people were killed and injured.

The number of casualties and injuries is nothing, the key is that they failed to stage their railway, so that their railway was repaired all the way to the city of Hami, and the artillery and shells were transported to the city.

This city can't be defended!

Therefore, when it was discovered a few days ago that the main force of Datang had arrived under Hami City, Wulihan had actually started to arrange for a side retreat.

It's just that the retreat of tens of thousands of troops is not so easy, especially when the opponent still has tens of thousands of cavalry.

With this retreat, it is estimated that the opponent's cavalry will be able to catch up, and then it will be even more passive. After all, only half of our troops are cavalry, and the rest are infantry and other arms, so they can't walk fast.

However, Ulihan was also a strong general, decisive and resolute. Three days later, the troops in Hami City took the initiative to go out of the city to fight, and the cavalry troops also went out of the city.

Immediately afterwards, the two sides formed a formation outside the city for a battle.

However, it didn't take long for the infantry and artillery of the Great Tang Dynasty, composed of young men from the conquered nations, to discover that Wulihan himself had already led the cavalry to run away!

He didn't run away with the infantry and artillery at all, just let them contain the Datang Army.

When Lu Yuzhi learned of this situation, he frowned.

He did all the calculations, but he didn't count it. In Ulihan, he didn't even treat the more than 20,000 alien infantry and artillery troops as his own, and threw them directly, and then ran away with the cavalry of the Tatar headquarters!